The Goldberg Variations (Gould album)

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The original Columbia Masterworks album cover shows 30 photos of Gould in the studio, analogous to the 30 Goldberg variations.

Bach: The Goldberg Variations is the 1955 debut recording of the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould. It offered a passionate and fresh interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings.^[1]

At the time of the album's release, Bach's Goldberg Variations—a set of 30 contrapuntal variations beginning and ending with an aria—was outside the standard piano repertoire (having been recorded on the instrument only twice before, on small labels, by Rosalyn Tureck and Jörg Demus); the work was considered esoteric.^[2] Gould's recording both established the Goldberg Variations within the contemporary classical repertoire and made him an internationally famous pianist nearly "overnight".^[3] First played in concert by Gould in 1954, the composition was a staple of Gould's performances in the years following the recording.

The recordings were made monaurally in 1955 at Columbia Records' 30th Street studio in Manhattan over four days between June 10 and June 16, a few weeks after Gould signed this recording contract. Columbia Masterworks Records, the company's classical music division, released the album in January 1956. Bach: The Goldberg Variations became Columbia's bestselling classical album and earned Gould an international reputation. Sales were "astonishing" for a classical album: it was reported to have sold 40,000 copies by 1960, and had sold more than 100,000 by the time of Gould's death in 1982.^[4] The record is now in the catalog of Sony Classical Records.

At least one record company executive questioned Gould's choice of the obscure Goldberg Variations for his debut recording, but the pianist prevailed, having ensured that his recording contract granted him artistic freedom. Then aged 22, Gould was confident and assertive in the recording studio. Columbia recognized his talent and tolerated his eccentricities; on June 25 the company issued a lengthy, good-natured press release describing Gould's unique habits and accoutrements. These included a preparatory twenty-minute soaking of his hands and arms in very hot water before playing; a special piano chair, bottles of pills, and unseasonal winter clothing accompanied him to the studio.^[2] Gould often had trouble finding a piano he liked; the Variations were recorded on a Steinway he had acquired in 1955, which had been shipped around the northeastern United States for his concerts.

The recording gained attention for Gould's unique pianistic method, which incorporated a finger technique involving great clarity of articulation (a "detached staccatissimo"), even at great speed, and little sustaining pedal. Gould's piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero, had encouraged Gould to practice "tapping", which required very slowly tapping the fingers of the playing hand with the free hand. According to Guerrero, tapping taught the pianist an economy of muscle movement that would enable precision at high speeds. Gould "tapped" each Goldberg variation before recording it, which took about 32 hours.^[5] Gould's choice of tempi for the variations was also idiosyncratic.

Gould wrote the liner notes to the recording. Concluding his analysis of the Goldberg Variations, he wrote: "It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire's lovers, 'rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.' It has, then, unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency."

Gould later criticized his 1955 interpretation, expressing reservations about its pianistic affectation, overt emotionalism, and fast tempo. He found much of the 1955 recording "just too fast for comfort", and lamented the 25th variation, which sounded "remarkably like a Chopin nocturne".^[6] The extreme tempi in the 1955 performance made for a short recording, as did Gould's decision not to play repeats (each Goldberg variation consists of two parts, which are to be repeated).

Shortly before his death in 1982, Gould rerecorded the Goldberg Variations digitally and in stereo. He largely abandoned the showmanship of the 1955 performance and replaced it with a more introspective and meditative interpretation that included more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. For the 1981 version, Gould sought to unify the variations through his choices of tempi: he played more of the repeats, and sought to express proportional rhythmic relations between the variations. Arriving within a year of his death, the 1981 recording is popularly recognized as "autumnal", a symbolic testament to Gould's career.^[7]

In 2002, Sony issued a three-compact-disc collection titled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981.^[1] It includes the 1955 and 1981 Goldberg recordings (the latter remastered from analogue tapes), and a third disc with 1955 studio outtakes and a lengthy interview with Gould documentarian and music critic Tim Page.

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Bazzana, Kevin (2004). Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0195174402. 

[edit] External links

• Liner notes to 1955 recording